User blog:Jovanbkt/Why bother?
Why bother making this wiki? Well, the answer is comples, and yet straightforward. I hope to help myself keep all my notes in order, mre streamlined and easier for me to access, a source of pure resource rather than the dozens of notes scattered in files on my laptop and PC. I hope to allow anyone who is interested access to a little more of the Seraphic Chronicles uiverse. I hope to raise awareness of the Seraphic Chronicles. to help drive sales of the books and, hopefully, aid in getting it produced into a series one day. The Seraphic Chronicles had its inception in a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine script in which the Borg attacked DS9. The one episode script soon became two episodes, then three, then was changed to a stand alone mini-series, then a 5-season long series ebfore i ultimately divorced it from the Star Trek universe and set out on my own series. Over the next few years the series changed to incorporated many of my own ideas and ideas i ripped from various sources, Lord of the RIngs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Indiana Jones, Aliens, Babylon 5, Star Wars, and dozens of others. Then, my laptop suddenly died, and when i checked my back up files, they were cirrupted and 75% of all the information i had ever created was lost. I had it all in my brain, but the world i had created was done and dusted. So, after a day or two sulking i decided to turn a negative into a positive. I had always wanted to write a book. Here was my chance. I was inspired by reading several books in a year that stuck with me. Twilight, The Hunger Games and its sequels and some of my favourite books, the Harry Potter series. I came to the realisation that if mind-numbing drivel like Twilight and the 2nd and 3rd Hunger Games books (to be clear, the first book is awesome - if a total rip off of Japanese classic film Battle Royale) could be best sellers and cultural phenomenons, then surely i woudl write something which was printable. I knew i could do better. So i set myself a challenge, write the back story of one of the principle characters of the series, Ejjina Mexober-Quad. In the notes i still had her back story was quite well fleshed out, but one period, a key period really, was lacking. It simply said that her parents died in a shuttle crash, she went away with a Quad Grandmaster to join the Quad and then joined Star Command Academy before starting her career. A huge art of her life left relatively untouched. In knew roughly what had to have happened in this area, did some research on typical "young Adult" novels and romance books, and set off. Rhapsody came together quite quickly, and i enjoyed the process of writing it so much that i immediately went into writing Kingmaker before I had even released Rhapsody. I knew the rough shape these books had to have, the characters they coudl and could not introduce, and it was fun to look into the worlds and characters a bit more. But after finishing Kingmaker, and embarking on a torturous editing process, i faced a decision. SInce Kingmaker picks up pretty much where Rhapsody leaves off, what shoudl i do with the thrid and final book in the trilogy? Starting this Wiki had helped me immensely in the writing and editing process of Kingmaker, it allowed me to check dates, place names, character bio's easily. Now i was faced with the daunting prospect of trying to write a third book. Now, one thing i have a pet peeve about is the way iconic characters are treated in book form. When Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, Captain Sheridan, etc when writers explore their back story always become cliched. Kirk, for example, starts saving the day from the moment he enters the Academy, then as a young officer he is constantly at the centre of the action, savings planets and damsels, shooting and outsmarting the bad guys and generally being better than everyone else. My problem with this is that as a young officer Kirk woudl not have the oppertunity to do these things. He would be the extra on the bridge who comes in when the actually important officers go off to have adventures, minding the store while the adventure goes on with someone else as the lead character. I did not want to do this with my characters. I strived to have some sembalnce of reality. There might be monsters and magic and faster than light droves and teleportation and aliens and amazing worlds, but in the midst of this i wanted some sembalance of the real. If Ejjina had multiple fantastical adventures, surviving them all, she would become cartoonish and unbelievable, So, the conclusion i came to woudl be to jump ahead several years to the adventure right ebfore the series begins. It was something i had always strived to get into the series, but coudl not do so without upsetting the balance, shoe-horning it in when time would be better spent telling other stories. It was an important peice of back story for Ejjina and other characters, but was not the story I was telling at the time. So, i decided that the final piece of the trilogy would be the Podrink 452 Incident, the contraversial mission Ejjian undertakes theat confirms her, and the Quad, as dangerous mavericks, but also explaing the political considerations that led to her being placed in command of the ScSS Seraphic at the start of the series. This wiki had helped me immeasurably, keeping track of several things. Over the eyars i woudl have new ideas and throw them into character profiles, change names, etc, but not always would these things make it to all of my notes, and as a result they were fragmented and slightly contradictorary in places. Hopefully this wiki will allow me to keep things straight in future, and guard againt the day when i loose my notes again! Anyone wondering about Oblivion... i'm on Chapter 7 at the moment, although my loose outline lists this as chapter 4, so that just shows how fluid my writing and notes has to be. If anyone has questions or queries about any of the characters, worlds, the stories or anythign else, please feel free to contact me. I woudl ask that you respect this wiki, add to it if you feel i have missed something by all means, you'd be doing me a favour, and spread the word about the Seraphic Chronicles. There is a LOT more to come. Craig W. Atkinson Category:Blog posts